The black sky turned blue, and personnel at the air force base instinctively ducked for cover.
The source of the light was a nuclear test conducted high up in the atmosphere.
The fireball from Operation Hardtack Teak.
The sky had turned from dark to yellow to orange and then red.
In distant Western Samoa, 3,200 kilometers to the south, the explosion produced a brilliant display of aurora.
Four years later, the United States conducted another series of high-altitude nuclear tests.
The first two attempts ended up in failure, and the rockets were destroyed.
The nuclear warhead the Thor rocket was carrying was rated at 1.4 Megatons.
At the precise instant of the explosion, streetlights in Hawaii blinked out.
Telephone lines went dead.
The visual phenomenon was intense and widespread, illuminating a large area of the Pacific.
The fireball created by Starfish Prime as seen through the cloud cover from Honolulu.
The flash created by the explosion of Starfish Prime as seen through heavy cloud cover from Honolulu.
At high altitudes, nuclear blasts behave differently than those closer to the ground.
These electric fields can produce potentials of several thousand volts.
Scientists had anticipated EMP interference, but the EMP blast from Starfish Prime proved to be too powerful.
There was another effect they failed to predict.
At least six satellites were lost to Starfish Prime, including one British and one Soviet.
This makes the electrons radiate EMP over a massive area.
The Soviets conducted their own high-altitude nuclear tests with similarly disastrous results.
On October 22, 1962, a 300 kiloton machine was detonated at an altitude of 290 km.
It’s not that EMPs are not a threat, military analyst Sim Tack told Vice.
